


Augustus

by sahiya



Category: White Collar
Genre: Cats, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing Neal did after he got the anklet off was not to disappear to Europe for a year. The first thing Neal did as a free man was something Peter never saw coming. He got a cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Augustus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yamx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yamx/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, Yamx! Thank you for beta reads (in two languages!) and teaching advice all year long!

The first thing Neal did after he got the anklet off was not to disappear to Europe for a year, as Peter had more than half-expected. No, the first thing Neal did as a free man was something Peter never saw coming. 

He got a cat. 

It was a sleek, black tomcat with blue eyes, white paws, and a very dignified white chest. His face was shaped like one of those Egyptian sculpture cats, with a strong, square jaw line. Neal called him “Augustus,” as in “Rodin,” but everyone else called him “Gus.” The first time El saw a picture of Gus, she put her hand over her mouth and snickered helplessly. 

“What?” Peter asked, glancing down at the photo Neal had sent him on his phone. 

“Neal,” she said, still laughing. “Neal got _himself_ \- as a _cat_.”

Peter looked down at the picture again. The cat looked far too pleased with himself, as though he’d gotten away with something and knew it. Damn it if El wasn’t right. “Leave it to Caffrey,” he muttered. 

Truthfully, Peter wasn’t a cat person. He’d had dogs growing up. He understood dogs. Cats, he just didn’t get. He’d never had one, and while he’d known one or two that seemed nice enough, most of the time they were just more aloof than he preferred his pets to be. He recognized, though, that this was a symbolic gesture. He could imagine Neal running out on him and El, but he couldn't imagine Neal abandoning his cat. Gus was stability and reliability and domesticity, all rolled into one smug, furry, black-and-white package. As long as Gus was around, so would Neal be. 

And Gus wasn’t aloof. Like Neal, Gus loved people. When Neal was home, Gus was never more than three feet away, unless it was to sit on June or Mozzie or Elizabeth - whoever happened to be nearby. He even got along with Satchmo. Really, there was just one problem. 

Gus _hated_ Peter. 

It wasn’t as though Gus ever did anything. His manners were far too refined for him to ever scratch or bite anyone. But he never sat on Peter, like he did everyone else, and the first time he and Peter were alone in a room together, Gus had hunkered down and stared at him, unblinking. Peter had thought he was imagining things at first, but after a minute or two, he'd decided he wasn’t. “What?” he finally said, hardly believing himself. 

The cat flicked its tail. Peter fought the urge to squirm. It reminded him of nothing so much as being grilled by El’s father the first time she’d brought him home, about his _intentions_. But that was ridiculous. It was a cat. 

It didn’t stop there, though. Pretty soon, Gus was a semi-regular visitor in Peter’s house, since Neal brought him whenever he came for the weekend. The cat stared at Peter whenever they were alone, eyes gleaming with a wariness Peter felt was completely unfair. He’d never done anything to hurt Gus, after all. Hell, if it weren’t for him, Neal probably would’ve never adopted Gus in the first place. Not that there was any way to tell him that.

Peter didn’t say anything to El or Neal, suspecting that neither of them would believe him, but it was uncomfortable; he’d never felt so judged in his own home. But if feeling judged by a cat was the worst Peter had to put up with in order to have Neal in his life, he was willing to do it. Even if it meant waking up with a feline body wedged firmly between himself and his lover.

A year after Neal got the anklet off and acquired Gus from the SPCA, the two of them finally moved into Peter and El’s house. Neal rented an office for his private security consulting-slash-art restoration company just a few blocks away in Brooklyn, and every night Peter got to come home to him and El. Peter knew exactly how lucky he was to have found El fifteen years ago; he didn’t even want to think about how lucky he'd had to be to find Neal, too. If he thought about it for too long, he’d start to wonder when the universe might decide to tip the scales. 

The only issue was, predictably, Gus. None of Peter’s attempts to work himself into the cat’s good graces via bits of roast chicken and deviled ham from his own sandwiches seemed to do the least bit of good. Gus ate them readily enough, then went straight back to regarding Peter with the sort of suspicion that Peter had regarded _Neal_ with at certain points in their relationship. 

“Hon, you’re being overly sensitive, don’t you think?” El said, when Peter finally broke and said something to her. “Cats are particular about their people. Gus can probably sense you’re a dog person.”

“June is a dog person and he likes her,” Peter replied. “He likes Satch, and he’s an actual _dog_. I’m the only person Gus has ever met that he hasn’t liked, and I can’t figure out why.”

“Does it matter?” El asked gently. “It’s not like he makes a habit out of biting you.”

“I know,” Peter sighed. “It’s just . . .” He didn’t even know what to say, why it mattered so damn much that Neal’s cat didn’t like him. 

“He matters to Neal,” El said, when he didn’t go on. “And you’re worried that Gus not liking you somehow reflects on your relationship with Neal.”

It was somehow both better and worse to hear her put it so plainly. “I guess so,” Peter said. “Stupid, I know.”

El smiled. “I think it’s sweet. But I also think you need to let it go. Gus might warm to you eventually, but if he doesn't, you can't take it personally.”

And Peter didn't, for the most part. He didn’t take it personally when the cat puked in his (never El or Neal’s) shoes. He didn’t take it personally when he came home late from the office and found the cat stretched out full length on his part of the bed, eyes gleaming smugly in the dim lamplight. And he didn’t take it personally when the cat scratched his favorite chair and left the sofa untouched. By the time January rolled around, Peter thought he’d turned _not taking it personally_ into an art form. 

That January was miserable. It didn’t snow, just rained and froze, again and again. Neal caught a cold and couldn’t shake it, and then the Friday before MLK weekend, he woke with a deep, hacking cough. Nothing was happening at the office - even the city’s criminal element seemed to be depressed by the weather - so Peter took the day off to drag Neal to the doctor. When they got home around lunchtime, he packed Neal off to bed and heated up some homemade soup from the freezer. He put the bowl on a tray with a tall glass of orange juice and the antibiotics the doctor had prescribed and took the tray upstairs to the bedroom. 

Neal had changed into his pajamas, crawled under the covers, and promptly fallen asleep. He was curled on his side, a wad of tissues clutched in his hand, and tucked into the curve of his body was Gus. 

Gus raised his head when Peter came in, eyeing Peter watchfully as he set the tray down on the bedside table and sat down on the bed at Neal’s back. He watched the steady rise and fall of Neal’s chest for a moment, accompanied by a harsh wheeze that Peter didn’t like at all. He didn’t like to wake Neal when he so clearly needed the rest, but the sooner he took his pills, the sooner the antibiotics would start to work. He rested his hand on Neal’s shoulder to shake him awake. 

The cat hissed at him. 

Peter froze. He stared at Gus, who stared back at him with his ears flattened, as though to say, _That’s right. You heard me._

“What the hell?” Peter said aloud. Neal didn’t stir but the cat stood and hopped up on Neal’s hip, where he hunkered down and continued to stare at Peter, as though daring him to try anything. Gus’s proprietary air was unmistakable. 

Peter abruptly decided he was done not taking this personally. “That’s it,” he told the cat, glaring. “You and I are going to have a long overdue conversation.” And with that, he picked the cat up, ignoring his indignant yowl of protest, and carried him out of the room under his arm. He marched into the bathroom, shut the door, and dumped the cat onto the closed lid of the toilet. 

“Now, you listen to me,” Peter began, glaring fiercely at the cat. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ve had just about enough. You don’t hiss at me - not when I’m trying to take care of Neal.”

The cat stared back, looking - to Peter’s mind - utterly unimpressed. Peter rubbed a hand over his face. This was insane. He was _talking_ to Neal’s _cat_. El was right. He really needed to let this go.

There was a soft touch on the back of Peter’s hand. Peter looked down and saw that Gus was resting one of his front paws there. Peter blinked, then frowned. Once, in a fit of desperation, he’d found himself on a cat behavior website, hoping for some insight into the source of Gus’s hostility. He’d read that when one cat rested its paw on top of another cat, that was a sign of dominance. _I got this_ , that gesture meant. 

Peter jerked his hand back. “No,” he told the cat firmly, “you don’t have this. I have this, if only because I’m the one with the opposable thumbs that can heat up soup and open the bottle of antibiotics. Are we clear?”

Gus, of course, didn’t say anything. They stared at each other unblinking until Peter’s eyes started to burn. He knew better than to try and out-stubborn a cat, but he probably would’ve given it a shot anyway, had Neal not chosen that moment to knock on the bathroom door. 

“Peter? You okay in there?”

“Uh, yeah,” Peter said, hastily moving to wash his hands. “I’m fine. Go back to bed, Neal.”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

Of course he did. Peter glared at Gus, who merely licked a paw unsympathetically. Peter sighed and opened the door. “All yours,” he said to Neal. “How’re you feeling?”

Neal gave a listless, one shouldered shrug. “I’ll be okay. Er.” He paused, glancing between Peter and Gus. “Were you . . . talking to my cat in the bathroom?”

“Don’t ask,” Peter sighed. “Just don’t.”

“O-kay,” Neal said, and shooed Gus out of the bathroom before shutting the door. 

Gus meandered back into the bedroom. Peter followed and watched him jump up on the bed, settling himself in Neal’s spot. “He’s yours,” Peter said after a moment, quietly, so that Neal wouldn’t hear him from the bathroom. “I get it. But he’s mine, too. I’m happy to share, but quit puking in my shoes, all right? And don’t hiss at me again.”

Gus merely blinked at him. Peter sighed. 

Neal came back after a minute or two, and Peter helped him into bed. He took his medication, drank the juice, and ate a few bites of soup before starting to nod off over the tray. Peter carted everything back downstairs and washed up, then grabbed a few files from the pile of cases he’d left in the living room and went back up to the bedroom. 

He’d expected to find Gus sprawled across the unoccupied half of the bed, taking up as much space as possible and forcing Peter to either move him or else contort himself to fit on the bed. But to his surprise, Gus was still curled up at Neal’s side. Peter settled himself on the bed with his files. He looked at the cat and the cat looked back. Maybe it was Peter’s imagination - hell, maybe _all_ of this had been Peter’s imagination - but he thought Gus looked just a shade less suspicious of him than usual. “See?” Peter said. “I’m not so bad.” He reached over to scratch behind the cat’s ears. 

Gus gave a small, soft growl. Peter had no trouble interpreting that as, _Don’t push your luck._ He took his hand back and turned back to his work. “Baby steps,” he muttered, opening the first file. “Baby steps.”

_Fin._


End file.
